7 Ways to Accomplish Your Weight-Loss Goals

We continually strive to reach specific goals. They can be meeting a new friend, making a date, finishing school, building a career, buying a home, having a family, or goals for retirement. My point is, once a goal is achieved, there is another one to turn your attention to. Regardless of the desired goal, it takes the same technique to realize each one.

Think back on all that you have accomplished. Reflect on the time it took to achieve a goal, and how you either allowed nothing to come between you and your goal, or if it did, you did not allow the obstacle to derail your progress. Yet when it comes to attaining a healthy body weight, do you allow too many obstacles or distractions to derail your efforts? This leads to giving up on these goals altogether. With a strong desire and perseverance you will prevail!

7 Ways to Accomplish Your Weight-Loss Goals:

1. Define your goal: Define your goal so that you can see and feel that it has already been achieved. When your goal is to lose weight, ask yourself “why?” Your ‘why’ will allow you to be more specific in goal setting. If you want to lose weight for appearances, define exactly what you will look like. Be realistic. Find someone who looks like you want to look with the understanding that you want to be the best you and not a copy of someone else. If you want to further your career and you feel excess weight is holding you back, define and seek the exact position you want, or the company you want to work for. If health reasons are your “why”, talk to someone who has lowered their blood pressure, cholesterol, AC1 numbers, or improved their mobility with weight loss, and ask them exactly how it’s changed their day-to-day routines and health. Have a specific mental picture of your goals at all times.
2. Acknowledge the changes you have already made: Often we reflect on past attempts at weight-loss as failures when they are nothing of the sort. Each attempt is lessons learned, and in each new attempt, incorporate those lessons. Acknowledge all changes that have already been conquered and celebrate them. These are what you build on.
3. Use a daily plan: Whether it’s a work day, vacation day, or weekend, have a plan to choose your food with the understanding that everyday has different eating patterns. When you have a plan, but obstacles arise, alter your day to plan B. When there is no plan, food choices are left to happenstance and you flounder. Have a plan and be flexible when necessary.
4. The very next thing to do: Move forward and never linger on a poor choice. Each moment is one to capitalize on. Remove guilt from the weight-loss process, and stop to consider, “What is the very next thing I will do to feel strong again?” Leave poor choices behind with an understanding that they will happen. Strive to make them less severe and further apart. You’ll do that by always thinking of your very next move.
5. What do you expect to happen as you reach your goal: Have a vision board and make a concrete visual picture of what your life will be once your goals are achieved. Be realistic. If you think you will be more active or somehow be a better person and people will like you more just because you weigh less, think again. Become that better person now. Give others reasons to like and want to be with you starting immediately, and get active achieving the goals on your vision board.
6. Who is involved and what is their role in your goals: Start identifying who you can rely on for help and also pinpoint those who will never assist you. Ask for help and be explicit with the type of assistance you need. To those who offer unwelcome opinions and advice, be kind, say thank you, and continue with your plan.
7. What will be next; Once you achieve your original goals, it is now time to set new ones. Repeat these steps; by doing so you have re-framed your story to build a new future.

When you can maintain your focus on weight-loss goals, the results will amaze you. As you accomplish each goal there will be another, but you’ll soon realize how far-reaching the benefits are in every aspect of your life. In time, you’ll discover the efforts become easier.

Contact Margaret Marshall for media interviews or to speak at your next event. Margaret Marshall enjoys almost three decades in the wellness/weight loss industry. She had a seventeen- year run as a speaker and trainer for Weight Watchers and now is an author, media personality, and international speaker who presents wellness programs for corporations such as:

Amtrak, Pepsi, The Mets Organization, JDA, Amex, Metlife, Cannon USA, National Grid, Fort Hamilton USAG, Time Inc, Time Warner Music, Verizon, Morgan Stanley, KPMG, Fordham University, Hofstra University, The New York College for Health Professions, Molloy College, St. Francis Hospital, Winthrop Hospital, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Princess Cruises.

Margaret is the creator of the Five-Finger Food Guide Her first book Body, Mind, & Mouth was followed by her recent release, Healthy Living Means Living Healthy

Twitter: @MarshallM01